DI Patston, the former ARU staffer at the centre of the Kurtley Beale texting scandal, has broken her silence and revealed “I’m alive but there have been times I haven’t wanted to be here”.
Beale has been cleared to return from suspension with the Wallabies after being fined $45,000 for sending an offensive photograph to then-ARU employee Patston in June. He escaped a harsher punishment after a second and more offensive text was discovered to have been sent by somebody else.
Patston told The Australian that she was physically ill after Beale’s sanction was announced following an Australian Rugby union code of conduct tribunal on Friday night.
“If it was one image or two or 20, what does it matter?” Patston said.
“They were both of very obese women in a very derogatory way. I am overweight and they were both naked with everything exposed.
“He (Beale) doesn’t know my background. I’ve had an ongoing illness myself and I’m on medication. There’s a whole story behind it. So degrading me … I actually said to my dad I felt bullied into not telling anyone about the photos because I was embarrassed. I actually sat at a table and cried for an eternity because I didn’t know who to tell because I’m so embarrassed by this. Is this what people think of me?
“People don’t see that side of it. They don’t see there’s a level of feeling degraded, feeling like you’re worthless. And he actually admits to sending it twice.
“I’m not good. Life is probably the worst it has ever been. I’m alive but there have been times I haven’t wanted to be here.”
The Australian also reported that Patston hugged Beale and forgave him back in June because he assured her he had not sent the text to anyone else, only to last week discover he had sent the same image to “some Waratahs mates” six days earlier.
Patston learned of the earlier text when was sent a copy of Beale’s statement — in which he made that admission — last Tuesday.
“Even as I was cuddling him, he said ‘I promise you, Di, I haven’t sent this to anyone’,” Patston said.
“When I read his statement, I can tell you I relived it all again. It’s like he played me for a fool. If he had said to me it was the second time he did it in the matter of seven days, no way, absolutely no way, would I have just said ‘That’s OK’.”
Di Patston breaks silence — read the full story at The Australian
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